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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24621904">The Ache That Knows You Well</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/disco_lemonade/pseuds/disco_lemonade'>disco_lemonade</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, monogamy is hard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 10:35:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,499</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24621904</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/disco_lemonade/pseuds/disco_lemonade</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss is restless in her marriage to Peeta, and fantasizes about pursuing her attraction to her neighbor and mentor, Haymitch.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Haymitch Abernathy/Katniss Everdeen, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Ache That Knows You Well</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Because love is a strange thing, as immeasurable as anything you’ve ever tried to wrap your mind around. Like looking at a word on paper or saying it out loud so many times that it becomes alien.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Love. Love. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Love.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Love love love love love love love.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You know that there’s a beautiful blonde man in the kitchen, baking his heart out because nourishing you is what he lives for. You know that he loves you, and that you love everything he is, but as the years wear down and you grow into yourself, you know that love can’t bridge all the gaps that don’t fit. There’s more that you want, now that the world is free enough for such a selfish thing like want.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When the three of you are in the living room, sharing a cigar and drinking whiskey after a hot meal, you find your gaze drifting toward him. The stubble on his face, that leads to his throat, that leads to the hint of a bare chest you can imagine easily beneath that denim button-up. When his eyes meet yours and you’re both smiling, you wonder and hope if it’s because he feels the same thing underneath all the pretenses. The hunger, the pull, the curiosity.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For so long comfort just seemed like not constantly surviving, but now that you can take survival for granted, your body and soul ache for comfort in new ways.</span>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Your need for him is so consuming that it feels like fire. Smoke in your eyes constantly, heaving for breath, your body shifting in the flames, unable to writhe away from the heat. Sometimes when Peeta’s going down on you, you reach back and squeeze the wrought iron posts of the headboard and bite your lip until it almost bleeds. Because when he’s buried so deep between your thighs you don’t have to look him in the eye, you let yourself pretend it’s Haymitch. You pretend you can feel that stubble, that you can smell the whiskey on his breath, that he loves the fragrance of you and exhales, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“Sweetheart,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>in between tastes of you because he can’t mask his adoration.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>If you come, Peeta is satisfied, and isn’t he better off being pleased with himself than knowing what’s really whirring in your mind?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There are dozens of nights where you can’t sleep, where you walk to the veranda and see a light on in the upstairs bedroom across the road. You’ve pictured what might happen if you just marched over there, let yourself inside his dark inner sanctum. You imagine him feigning surprise, chuckling hoarsely when you tell him, </span>
  <em>
    <span>“I came for a drink.”</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In this fantasy, he’s in a wicker chair by the window with a bottle in hand, because in this fantasy he’s been watching you, too. You take the bottle from him and take a fiery gulp, and with your eyes closed you feel him watch the curve of your throat. You drop the empty bottle to the ground and take off your cotton top, let him take in the sight of you. Let the chill of autumn midnight through the open window make your nipples go hard. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In this fantasy, you don’t have to say anything, because the true and lasting beauty of your relationship with Haymitch is that neither of you have to </span>
  <em>
    <span>say</span>
  </em>
  <span> much of anything to feel as intimate as blood. You straddle him and he’s already hard, already hungry for you, and you put your mouth on his while he puts his warm hands on your cold, tender breasts. Then he reaches into your jeans and inside of you in one swift, expert motion, and you whine in sweet agony because you’ve been dreaming of his touch for so long.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In reality, you are sweating, sitting on the porch, staring at the burning light of his bedroom window. You watch a cloud of tobacco smoke waft out of the window and into the cloudy, starless sky. In your imagination, the swirling smoke spells an invitation with your name.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Every night you resist him, you see as a sincere conquest of will.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Some mornings you sit at the breakfast table and you nearly tremble in shame when Peeta puts a soft kiss on your forehead and plate of pancakes in front of you. His love is so subtle and everywhere that you feel like sometimes you can’t breathe. You know that this is where you’ve made your home. You learned years ago that the kind of love that would build you a shelter was not always romantic or passionate or sudden. It grew, slowly, like a dandelion in the spring.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Because love is a strange thing, as immeasurable as anything you’ve ever tried to wrap your mind around. Like looking at a word on paper or saying it out loud so many times that it becomes alien.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Love. Love. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Love.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Love love love love love love love.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Some days you forget about your wandering mind. Some days, you revel in the stability of your quiet dandelion life. Some days you think about having babies with blonde hair, about being safe with someone who never makes you doubt yourself, about a future you couldn’t dare to dream about when you were a child.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But some days Peeta goes into town to man his bakery, and Haymitch comes over for lunch or coffee. And when you’re alone with him, you try hard to pretend like Peeta isn’t a thing, isn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything</span>
  </em>
  <span>. You look hard into Haymitch’s gray Seam eyes and search, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>hope</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that you can see some of your own longing inside them. You find yourself waiting like a naive girl in the Arena for some kind of secret message. You curl your toes inside your boots while you watch his chest rise and fall, trying to keep a straight face in the midst of all these </span>
  <em>
    <span>flames</span>
  </em>
  <span>, waiting for a silver parachute to land in your lap.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Can I get you another?” you say one day, looking at his empty mug on the coffee table. It’s chilly this afternoon, even for November, and you built a fire. It provides a welcome distraction; something to poke, or prod, or gaze at, because God knows idle hands are the devil’s playground.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Haymitch scratches his belly and sighs, glancing at the dregs in the bottom of his cup, then at you, sucking his teeth in thought.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In your fantasy, he stands and kicks the coffee table out of the way, an arbitrary boundary between the heat that is your souls. His calloused hands are wrapped in your hair, yanking your head back so that he can kiss you passionately, before the ceramic coffee mug has shattered on the ground. His arms are all around you, his stink is all over you, and you are simply </span>
  <em>
    <span>buried </span>
  </em>
  <span>in him, your bodies as inextricable as your sordid minds have always been.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But in reality, Haymitch stands, and carries his own coffee mug to the sink.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Better get moving along,” he grunts from the kitchen. From what seems like an insurmountable distance.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You move quickly, perhaps too quickly, to the foyer, to bid him farewell at the threshold of the open door. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Love you,” you say casually, watching the daylight pouring in on his face, shining on all of the cracks and scars you’d love to touch. You say it like it’s the sort of you say all the time, even though the two of you don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>say </span>
  </em>
  <span>much out loud. But of course he knows you love him. “Have a good one.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He pauses in the doorway. He looks at his shoes for awhile, and then at you. You, trying so hard to show nothing in your face when all you feel is maddening fire, in every inch of your body.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He taps your chin lightly with his knuckles. “Love you, too, sweetheart.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This is where he should walk away, but he lingers, and you are literally counting everyone of your deceitful heartbeats while you wait.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He leans in to you. His lips are close but not quite touching your ear and your hair.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I love you, Katniss,” he says in a low whisper. “But you and I both know you’ve gotta stop looking at me like that, sweetheart.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You are struck, terrified, frozen cold to the core, while he walks quickly down the front steps without turning around once before he is back inside the private sanctuary of his Victor home. You feel naked, and foolish, and dizzy. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Of course he knows,</span>
  </em>
  <span> you tell yourself, your cheeks flushed red. Has there ever been a moment, since he saw you on that train, where he didn’t figure out exactly what you were thinking?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Flustered, you scurry back into your home. You light up a tobacco pipe and drink the rest of your cold coffee, staring at the dying fire in the hearth. You wait, numbly, for your husband to come home.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Because love is a strange thing.</span>
</p>
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